


Welcome Home

by GeoffsEightGreatestMistakes



Series: home is the place for me and you [2]
Category: Camp Camp (Web Series), Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Foster Family, CC Foster Family AU, only content warning is mild langauge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-23
Updated: 2016-12-23
Packaged: 2018-09-11 06:43:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8963767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GeoffsEightGreatestMistakes/pseuds/GeoffsEightGreatestMistakes
Summary: Max’s first night at his new home.





	

**Author's Note:**

> _Continuation of the ‘Life After Camp’._
> 
> There's definitely going to be more of this. I've got some ideas written down, and I had a little bit of a holiday fic written but I don't think I'll have it finished in time...

The car ride home was kind of awkward. 

Max sat in the passenger seat; arms crossed and brooding. David drove, still smiling despite Max’s bitterness. 

“What do you want for dinner Max?” David asks as they near the apartment. It’s no longer David’s apartment, it’s  _ David and Max’s  _ apartment.

Max looks away from the window, glaring at David out of the corner of his eye.

“I don’t know.” He grumbles, shrugging moodily. 

“Come on,” David insists. “There has to be something you want! What’s your favorite?” 

Max doesn’t say anything for a minute.

They reach the apartment complex; David pulls into the parking lot and right into his usual spot. Just as David turns off the engine, Max speaks up.

“Spaghetti and meatballs.” Max mumbles, looking down at his lap. David pauses, about to open the car door, and his smile brightens a little.

“I’ll make that for you.” David nods once before he gets out of the car. Max follows, grabbing the backpack that was by his feet. That backpack contains all of his clothes and possessions. 

They walk through the parking lot and into the lobby. The apartment complex is five floors, and David lives on the third. There is an elevator, but David being David, they take the stairs. Max silently follows.

“Here we are…” David murmurs as they reach the third floor. David’s door is the first on the left. Max looks down the empty hallway, and he lets out a quiet sigh. It looks so generic, like nothing special. And David’s apartment is nothing special. The walls are an off-white, and the layout is pretty boring. The door opens right into the living room, and immediately to the left is a short hallway where there are the two bedrooms and shared bathroom, and past the living room is the connecting kitchen; the two rooms separated by a bar.

Above the couch hangs half a dozen framed posters from national parks across the country. The TV across from the couch is decently sized, and the little bookshelf next to it has one shelf filled with assorted movies and games and the other three shelves filled with books. 

The apartment is nothing special, but David’s made it home with various plants scattered across the apartment to bring some nature to the place. Max can definitely tell that this is David’s apartment; half of his books are about the wilderness or surviving in the wild. 

“You can drop your bag on the couch,” David lets Max in, and then he shuts the door behind them. He drops the keys into a little ceramic bowl that sits next to the door. 

“I’ll show you your room in a minute! This weekend we can go and pick out some furniture.” David cheerfully explains for probably the third time. He wanders into the kitchen, setting the stack of papers the lady had given him on the counter. 

Max is still standing awkwardly by the door, holding onto his backpack. 

“You can relax Max,” David chuckles, coming back over to Max and smiling sweetly. “This is your home now!”

Max grunts, scowling and stuffing his hands into his hoodie. The blue hoodie from five years ago has been replaced with a dark red one, and this hoodie looks like it’s been to hell and back. It’s tattered and stained, with a few holes scattered across it. 

“How about I show you your room?” David makes another attempt at conversation, and Max shrugs.

“Sure.” All Max has given David since they left the foster care office was short, one to two word answers. David really hopes that Max will come around and open up.

David leads Max down the short hallway, taking him to the first door. The first door is Max’s bedroom, then there’s the bathroom, then there’s David’s room. 

Max’s room is pretty plain. It’s a fairly skinny room, more long than wide, and on the far wall is a window. The only furniture in the room is a twin sized bed and a white dresser against the wall. 

“I’ll give you some spare sheets for now, then you can pick out what you want when we go shopping.” David gestures to the bed, and Max snorts.

“Wow, I get to pick out my sheets…” He rolls his eyes. “What a fucking  _ amazing  _ ‘welcome to your new home’ gift.”

It’s the most Max has spoken in about an hour, and of  _ course  _ it’s a snarky comment.

David looks mildly offended. He wants to scold Max on his language, but he knows that that’ll do nothing.

“Max, I’m trying to make this as good as I can.” David sighs. “I don’t exactly make a lot of money, but I’ve saved for months to get you what you want.” 

Max rolls his eyes once more and he tosses his backpack onto the bed. 

“I know that things have been hard for you,” David doesn’t need to bend down anymore to talk to Max. Max isn’t as all as him, but he’s pretty close. The top of Max’s head reaches just under David’s eyes. 

“But you have to  _ try _ . If you don’t try to feel better nothing is ever going to change.” 

Max snorts again and he crosses his arms across his chest.

“Says the ball of neverending optimism,” Max says with some sass.

David holds in another sigh, and he sits on the edge of the bed. 

“Things have changed Max.” David’s voice is quieter now. “I know this isn’t camp, and I try my best to stay happy but it’s just…  _ harder  _ now.”

Max doesn’t say anything, but the moody look in his eyes fades a little.

“And even though there’s so much stuff happening right now, I try to stay optimistic or else I’ll just be bitter all the time. You have to be positive Max.”

This sounds like a lesson, something David would’ve said five years ago at camp. But life has changed. Max has grown, and David is no longer a camp counselor. This isn’t some person being paid to run a summer camp teaching him a bullshit lesson. David is now his legal guardian. 

“I’m trying my best, and I hope that pretty soon things get better for the both of us.” David doesn’t say anything for a minute.

Then, he pushes himself off the bed and clasps his hands together.

“ _ Okay _ ,” he sighs, and looks at Max. “I’m going to start making dinner. You can get settled and relax until it’s ready.”

Then he leaves the room, and Max is left staring after him. The first thing was his sudden mood change, and the second thing was how  _ weird  _ that was, in general.

He felt bad, but not in the way he had on one of the last nights of camp when they had that whole Order of the Sparrow thing. He feels bad about how much things have changed, and how he’s acting.

Yes, he can’t exactly let go of a lifetime of bitterness, but he could at least  _ try.  _ It’s obvious that David just wants what’s best for Max.

With a sigh, Max grabs his phone from his backpack and he leaves his new bedroom.

 

Max has sprawled across the couch. He’s playing some game on his phone, bored because David doesn’t seem to have any gaming consoles. 

David’s in the kitchen, humming quietly as he makes dinner. He’s got garlic bread toasting in the oven, spaghetti boiling in a pot on the stove, meatballs being cooked in the microwave, and another small pot warming up some sauce. David is going all out for Max’s first dinner.

As everything cooks, David moves over to the table, moving the stacks of papers over to the coffee table. It’s all homework from his students, stuff that needs to be graded. 

Max glances over when David drops the stack on the coffee table next to him. The first few papers are children’s drawings of their families, and Max doesn’t care enough to look at the stack for longer than a few seconds.

David goes back to the kitchen and gets back to cooking and making sure everything is going smoothly.

The apartment is quiet. There’s the bubbling of the boiling water, the sound of the air conditioner rattling, David’s quiet humming, the quiet sounds coming from the game on Max’s phone, and the humming of the fridge. 

It’s quiet, but it’s not uncomfortable. It feels weirdly nice to Max, like something warm and inviting. 

“It’s almost ready,” David calls over the bar after a few minutes.

“Can you grab the cheese? It’s in the fridge door.” David asks as Max steps into the kitchen. Max does what he’s told, heading over to the fridge first before sitting down.

David’s by the stove, serving up two bowls of of spaghetti and meatballs with a thick slice of garlic bread tucked into the side of the bowl. 

It looks really good, and Max starts to dig in the second David sets the bowl down in front of him. It’s Max’s first home-cooked meal in a long time.

The silence lasts for about a minute, then David speaks.

“So do you still talk with Neil and Nikki?” 

Max pauses his eating for a second, looking up from his bowl and to David. 

He shrugs. “Yeah, we were in school together.”

David nods a little, and Max continues.

“I haven’t seen them lately.”

He hasn’t seen them since he was put into foster care because they moved him to a new school.

“Well maybe they can come over soon, since you’re going to be here for awhile.” David smiles a little. 

The only negative thing about being here with David is that he’ll still be going to a different school. The thought of seeing Neil and Nikki again is great, but he still won't be seeing them in class.

Max doesn't say much else. David makes multiple attempts at conversation; asking small questions like what Max likes to do, how the last few years have been, and other attempts at small talk. None of them work, Max either shrugging or giving very short answers. 

 

Dinner comes to an end, and as David cleans the dishes, Max goes back to the couch. But instead of playing games on his phone, he turns on the TV. David doesn't have cable, but he does have Netflix. It's better than nothing and he looks through Netflix for something good. 

He settles on Bob’s Burgers just as David comes out of the kitchen.

David makes a small comment about how it's a good choice, and he settles down into the couch next to Max. 

He's got a clipboard and pen in hand, and as the episode begins he starts to go through the pile of papers; grading his students’ work. 

The apartment settles back into a comfortable quiet. Neither of them say anything for awhile, and Max actually feels comfortable.

He's only been here for a few hours, and it's already beginning to feel like home. It's not like his parents’ house, where everything was strict schedules and there was the looming threat of punishment if he stepped one toe out of line. 

David’s apartment feels cozy. It feels comfortable and inviting. It feels like home.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I hope ya'll liked this, it's so much fun to write c:
> 
> And if you got an idea for this au, you can send it to my [ask box](http://geoffs-8-greatest-mistakes.tumblr.com/ask) on tumblr!


End file.
